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Uzalo’s MaNcgobo gets shot

Fans are going to want to make doubly sure to tune in on Tuesday 16 May as gunfire rings out again in the KwaMashu Kingdom Church. Mastermind (Ntokozo Dlamini) and Mxolisi’s (Nay Maps Maphalala) plot to provoke Sbu (Simphiwe Majozi) into taking out church benefactor and secret ATM-bombing crimelord Nkunzi (Mhlongo Masoja Msiza) backfires as the deadly henchman interrupts the service to open fire. And Mxolisi’s mother MaNgcobo (Dawn Thandeka King) flings herself in front of his biological mother MaNzuza (Leleti Khumalo) to protect her!

Dawn explains that MaNgcobo doesn’t even have to think twice about taking a bullet for her former rival. “In that moment, it’s about protecting another woman from a crazy man driven by greed. It’s about protecting another human. She literally doesn’t think. She jumps in front of MaNzuza and before she can think about it, she’s shot.” And if she did take time to think, she’d still take the leap, says Dawn. “She’s invol-

ved. It’s her fiancé Nkunzi who has brought this crime into the church. This whole thing is happening because of the man who’s in her life. He is in church very quickly and he is donating money very quickly and he is confusing people very quickly. So MaNgcobo plays her part in trying to protect the people from being harmed by him.” For MaNzuza though, the heroic moment is a startling revelation. “That changes everything,” reveals Leleti. “It makes her forget all the bad things that MaNgcobo did.

It makes MaNzuza look at her in a different way – MaNgcobo isn’t a mean person. Maybe she acted the way she did because she was in a challenging situation. You look at things like that in a different perspective. You look much deeper.” It’s such a revelation that MaNzuza goes straight to the hospital the same day. “She can’t even wait for MaNgcobo to get better,” laughs Leleti. “She just has to say thank you so much!”

And in that moment of gratitude and understanding, MaNzuza and MaNgcobo lay to rest all the pain that we’ve seen play out between the pair over Uzalo’s shocking first two seasons. “When you sit down and you find out what exactly it is that doesn’t gel between two women, you tend to find the whole truth about everything – maybe you’ve been making stories in your mind that this person is like this. When you sit down and talk, everything changes. It’s always important, woman to woman, to have those kinds of talks,” adds Leleti.

With the ghosts between them gone, Mxolisi’s moms can move forward. But Dawn points out that MaNzuza can’t completely let go of her wariness about MaNgcobo’s influence. Dawn explains, “MaNgcobo is tainted, so MaNzuza is just very sceptical of Mxolisi coming back to the Xulu family, because our family is always dark.” Leleti adds that “in real life, things like this do happen. We might be at peace right now, but MaNgcobo might just do something that will remind me, ‘Oh by the way, you murdered my son’. It’s only normal. Having said that, we talk about it, we have move on, and we are okay with one another”.